Peace and Quiet

I'm holding Noah in my arms, and he just dropped off into a dead weight kind of sleep. Quiet is settling over the house as the kids all do the same.  I am torn between heading back downstairs to finish putting the house back together for the night and just rolling over and going to sleep.  Jason is gone- he's been making late night grocery runs for me since Noah joined us. Noah is 6 weeks old today. Not very old at all. Certainly not old enough for me to feel like I've for this new gig figured out. But I keep trying and trying and trying.  Really what else can I do? I keep accepting and asking for offers to help because I need it.

The kids are all adjusting, but not as quickly as any of us would like. They cry in chorus, they wake up in the night.  They disappear when Noah's wails get too loud, they fight for the spot closest to me when I'm reading to them.

We have observed that baby Noah is most like baby Adam- he wants to be held all day long.  He escalates very quickly- I can leave him peacefully sleeping in my bed for about 8 minutes before he wakes up. I guess he can't smell me anymore.  He doesn't like to be left alone.  Adam is still the same way- he hates going anywhere by himself even now- and will accept any company that will join him.  

I look sad in this picture.  I'm not sad.  I'm tired.  I appreciate sleep so much more when I'm not getting it.  When I'm tired, I forget that a hard day will eventually end- usually followed by an exceptionally good day- and I occasionally find myself worrying that my new normal is more than I can handle.  But then I remember that Heavenly Father has trusted me with these sweet babies, and I will be able to do anything He asks me to do.  And there is nothing in this world that I would rather be than a mother.

Because even more than the exhaustion, the self-doubting, and the short-comings, I feel love.  I feel my mother heart growing every day with love for my family, when I'm feeding them, bathing them, cleaning up after them, snuggling with them, and waking up with them in the night.  I do what I do because I love them.  And there is no greater feeling than that love in the world.

The love of a mother

comes nearer to being like

the love of God

than any other kind of love.

-Joseph F. Smith